The best camera….

… is the one that is always with you. Until recently, that always ment for me that I didn’t take a lot of photos because I did not have my camera with me – because I did not want to always carry my DSLR, especially when I was at college or at work. But now the smartphone cameras are finally becoming serious contenders for great photos. Recent months have seen a spike in iPhone apps which allow you to alter your photos and share them more easily with others (I know that there are some for Android and WinMo, too, but I have an iPhone, so I know most about those 🙂 ).

This change has led to a change in how most of us are taking photos – because finally, you do have the opportunity to take a photo when something catches your eye, because sometimes the small details or a stunning sunset come totally unexpected and give you a different creative outlet for your photos (I find it pretty interesting, how different the style of some of my favorite photographers is with their phones than with their „big“ cameras).

Besides taking different photos, most of us are sharing those photos differently, too. I’m sure most of you have heard of Instagram by now, an iPhone app that allows you to capture and edit photos on the go with an included network for sharing those photos. I like the app, but really hate the fact that they do not have a way to view photos of your contacts on the web, because I’m not opening the iPhone app regularly. Thankfully, some photographers are sharing their snaps on the web as well, some on Flickr and some on Tumbler blogs. Some examples are Jim’s iPhone (by Jim Goldstein) and MalsoMalso (by Martin Gommel).

I decided to share mine on Tumbler as well, because most often I don’t find them good enough to share them on Flickr but want to share them with you anyways. You can find them at pfenya.tumblr.com or you can add me on instagram under the nick „pfenya“, as always 🙂

While I use instagram and some of the apps that let you apply filters to your photos, my absolute favorite is Hipstamatic, which is a digital version of a toy camera with lots of different lenses and film types. The great thing is that you have to decide on your lens and film before you take the photo – which makes it really fun, since you have to be very deliberate in composing your shot and finding out what you want to do with it, which makes for a really great challenge when you love photography.